It's been great for me since DP3. DP1 and 2 were a bit of a mess, although the stability has been really good for a major release (unlike 10.8 which gave me constant kernel panics during the first couple of betas). The only real compatibility issue I've run in to is with iWork '09 (which is a real shame, since Pages is still missing some of the page layout features I rely on). Even Parallels (which is notorious for requiring driver updates during major point-zero releases)...

I doubt it - you can "sort-of" get the old functionality back by displaying playlists and the column browser. That way you can still drag and drop tracks into and between playlists. But I don't see a way to display your devices in a sidebar the way you used to be able to.

This probably sounds somewhat silly (admittedly, it is), but I wasn't arguing which was better - rather I was arguing that just because more people use one over another is not an indication of better. More people use Windows than OS X but I doubt many here (other than the trolls) would argue that makes Windows better. More McDonald's hamburgers are eaten than any others, and we all know theirs are rubbish. There are more cockroaches in the world than people but that...

True, most of the photographers I know use Lightroom. That in itself doesn't make it better. More people use PowerPoint than Keynote, and that certainly doesn't make PowerPoint better (on the contrary - without exception those who have used both say PowerPoint is a festering pile of crap). I suspect most people use Lightroom because they are already familiar with Photoshop, just as most people use PowerPoint because they are familiar with Microsoft and simply are unaware...

Oh I dunno - again, hindsight. Apple had been dropping minor updates over the years adding minor functionality enhancements as recently as late last year. I think that's what kept my hope alive that they hadn't abandoned us completely. I've been on Aperture since 1.0, having attended one of their traveling workshops to introduce the software (back when it was $500). I'm disappointed.